Venezuela deploys nearly 390,000 police and military personnel to protect elections

Caracas, Jul 24 (EFE).- More than 388,000 members of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) and various security forces in Venezuela were deployed Wednesday in the country’s 335 municipalities to ensure security during the presidential elections scheduled for Sunday.

In a televised event, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino ordered the deployment of the military who, as required by law, will maintain order in the voting centers and protect the material used by the National Electoral Council (CNE) for the elections, without any influence on the will of the citizens.

“The people who are going to go out to vote and are going to achieve peace and order in the streets, in the centers (…) we are going to guarantee order at all costs, peace, and I am calling on the people of Venezuela to get ready to see us on July 28,” he said.

He stressed that the military institution has “meridian clarity” about its role in the elections, in which – he said – they will not comment on the existence or not of fraud, a scenario that Chavismo has repeatedly raised, always attributing it to the main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD).

“I see on television and in surveys that this alleged fraud could or could not be condoned by the Armed Forces. That cannot be and will not be so, the FANB has its functions and its tasks clearly defined, it is not us who are going to decide if this is fraud or not,” he insisted.

This Sunday, the head of state, Nicolás Maduro, will seek a second re-election, for which he will have to face nine other contenders, including the PUD candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia.

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